9th Circuit stands by decision allowing Canadian cattle imports

August 31, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that federal regulators properly lifted a temporary ban on Canada cattle imports two years ago after a mad cow disease outbreak was discovered north of the border. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled similarly in 2005 when it allowed federal agricultural officials to reopen the border to Canadian cattle. Those cattle imports were banned in May 2003 after a cow in Alberta was found to have mad cow disease. Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Eating meat tainted with BSE is linked to a degenerative, fatal brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. More than 150 people died from the disorder following a 1986 outbreak in the United Kingdom. After the 2005 ruling, a group of cattle ranchers, known as Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America, still contended in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture that allowing the imports threatened the U.S. beef supply with mad cow disease. They said further cases of mad cow disease warranted another look at the import ban. The USDA argued that the few additional cases did not threaten the U.S. food supply because of preventive measures that had been put in place. On Tuesday, the court said the USDA acted properly and again declined to close the U.S.-Canada border to cattle imports. ''We are obviously disappointed in the ruling,'' said Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of R-CALF USA. ''But we view this to be the first but very important step in establishing adequate standards to protect our industry from foreign animal diseases.'' In addition to highlighting shortcomings in the country's border protection plan, the case has delayed USDA efforts to ''even further relax our border restrictions'' by allowing animals 30 months and older to be imported from Canada, he said. Beef and cattle imports have been restricted to animals younger than 30 months. Older animals carry a higher risk of mad cow disease because they may have eaten feed containing diseased cattle tissue before that type of feed was largely banned in 1997. Russell Frye, an attorney for the Billings, Mont.-based ranchers, said his clients haven't decided what to do next. Frye said the ranchers could appeal the decision by the three-judge panel to the full court or attempt to persuade the USDA to change its stance, but he said the cattlemen will continue their battle to ban Canadian cattle. ''We ought not be importing anything from Canada until we have a clearer picture as to what the risk is,'' Frye said. R-CALF has 15,000 members in 47 states, Bullard said.